Bodily Harm (13 page)

“I’m aware of that.”

“And you are the executor.”

“I am.”

Harper handed Sloane a document, which he quickly identified as a personal note. “Tina obtained the money for the down
payment for her San Francisco flat from her parents. This is a note requiring that she repay those funds.”

Sloane couldn’t hide the smirk. “You want the money back,” he said.

The Larsens did not answer.

“Legally—” Harper began.

“I’m aware of the legal significance of the note, Mr. Harper. I’ll write your clients a check within twenty-four hours.”

“There was accrued interest,” Harper said.

“I’ll pay it all: interest, penalties, whatever you want. Send me an accounting.”

Harper glanced at the Larsens, as if uncertain what to say but pleased by the result. He paused and cleared his throat before moving onto the next subject. “The deceased also had a last will and testament in which she expressed her desire that should anything happen to her, you would receive custody of and care for Jake.”

Sloane did not like Harper’s tone, which included an unspoken “but . . .” Something was wrong. “That’s correct. We were in the process of completing adoption papers when . . . when this happened.”

Bill and Terri Larsen raised their eyes and looked at him.

“But the fact is, Mr. Sloane, you did not legally adopt Jake, correct?”

“Are you cross-examining me, Mr. Harper?”

“I’m simply—”

“I just told you, Tina and I . . . and Jake, for that matter, agreed that I would adopt him.” Sloane looked to the end of the table. “Frank, we talked to you about this. You agreed.”

Now it was Frank Carter’s turn to divert his eyes.

“What is this about?” Sloane said. “What’s going on here?”

Harper cleared his throat but his voice quivered. “Legally, you do not have custody of Jake.”

Sloane leaned forward, palms pressed on the wood. “Legally? Are you kidding me? As compared to whom, a man who abandoned his son when he was three?”

Harper leaned back, creating distance. “The parents were divorced. The mother obtained custody of the child and moved to Seattle. The father did not abandon the boy; he was given visitation rights.”

“Which he never exercised,” Sloane interjected, “even during all the years they lived here in San Francisco. Frank, what the hell is this?”

“To the contrary, he provided the child with birthday gifts—”

Sloane banged a fist on the table. Harper flinched. So did Bill and Terri Larsen.

“The boy’s name is Jake. The ‘parent’ or ‘deceased’ was my wife. Her name was Tina. So do not refer to them again as if they were some hypothetical in a law school class, Mr. Harper. And do not insult me by trying to tell me how involved Frank was in Jake’s life. I know exactly how involved he was; I lived with Jake for the past two years, and before that I worked with his mother for ten. So don’t try to paint a picture of a doting father. I know better.” Sloane turned. “So do you, Frank.”

“There is no need for hostility, Mr. Sloane.”

“Maybe not for you, but I’ve put up with just about all I’m going to put up with.” Sloane directed his comment to the Larsens.

“Mr. Sloane, I asked you to direct—”

“I don’t care what you asked me to do.” He looked at Bill Larsen. “I tolerated your keeping Jake from me because I was in no condition to see him or to take care of him. I tolerated your cremating Tina and burying her without me. But I am not going to tolerate having a lawyer patronize me with legal jargon and a warped perception of reality.”

“Wait a minute, Mr. Sloane. If—”

“We are discussing the well-being of a thirteen-year-old boy who just lost his mother. The last thing he needs is to have his life further disrupted by removing him from his home and placing him in a strange house, in a strange city, away from his friends and school and everything left in his life that provides him stability.”

“We are all here in the best interests of the child . . . of Jake,” Harper said.

“If we all had Jake’s best interests at heart we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Jake belongs with me; everyone in this room knows that.”

“Legally, custody remains with Mr. Carter, his biological father.”

“Did anyone talk to Jake about this? Did anyone ask him what he wanted?”

The silence was telling.

“He wants to live with me, doesn’t he?”

“I don’t think a thirteen-year-old boy can judge what is best for him,” Harper said.

“How would you know? How many times have you talked to Jake? How many minutes, total, have you spent with him?” Harper did not respond. “I made him a promise. I made Tina a promise that if anything ever happened to her, I would take care of Jake.”

“Well, you got your wish didn’t you?” Terri Larsen spat the words at him, nostrils flared and eyes rimmed red by anger. “You couldn’t even protect her. You couldn’t protect my daughter, my baby. All of your celebrity and television appearances . . . all it did was bring the crazies into my daughter’s life. You couldn’t protect her. How are you going to protect Jake? Who’s going to watch him while you’re flying all over the country to mug for TV? Who’s going to protect him when another one of the crazies comes to kill you? When the crazy who killed her comes back? You’re responsible for her death.” She sobbed. “You killed her. You killed my baby.”

Bill Larsen put an arm around his wife’s shoulder.

“I told him we were a family,” Sloane said, almost slipping and telling them about Tina’s pregnancy but recognizing it would only be cruel.

Terri Larsen flung her husband’s arm off her shoulder. “Family? What would you know about family?”

“Jake loves me.”

“Jake thinks you’re the reason his mother is dead.”

Bill Larsen pulled back his wife, and this time she allowed him, swiveling her chair to the side, away from Sloane.

“That’s not true,” Sloane said, feeling a cramp in his chest. “You’re just saying that because you’re in pain and you want to hurt me. You want to hurt me? Fine, go ahead, hurt me. Say anything you want to me, but don’t hurt Jake; don’t do something that is going to hurt him more than he’s already been hurt. Maybe I don’t know family the way you do. But I know what it’s like to lose a mother. I lost everything; they took everything from me. They put me in a home with people I didn’t know; people who didn’t love me or care about me. All they cared about was the monthly check. I don’t want that for Jake.”

“Jake is not going to a home where no one loves him,” Harper said. “He’s going to live with his father.”

Sloane would have laughed if he had thought Harper was joking, but the expression on the man’s face indicated that he was serious. Sloane looked to Frank Carter. “You can’t honestly think that it is in Jake’s best interests to live with you.”

Frank did not answer.

“Frank?”

“Jake’s my son, David. I know I haven’t been the best father, but I want a chance.”

Maybe it was his comment about his foster parents and the monthly check, but suddenly Sloane put the pieces together, why
the Larsens would seek to execute on the personal note when the money had already been placed in a trust for Jake.

“My God,” he said. “They’re paying you. They’re paying you to take Jake.” Nobody answered, their silence damning. “What kind of people are you?”

“There’s no need for insults,” Harper said.

“This is an insult,” Sloane said. “It’s an insult to me and it’s an insult to Jake. And I’m not going to allow it. I won’t let you buy your grandson. I’ll seek custody. And I will win.”

“You have no legal—” Harper said.

Sloane lifted himself from his chair, palms flat on the table. “I don’t give a good goddamn what kind of legal basis you think I have. I will get Jake. And I guarantee this—it won’t be you who stops me. Check it out, Mr. Harper. I usually win, and I’ve never been more motivated to win in my life.”

No one answered.

“Where is he? I want to talk to my son.”

“If you attempt to contact Jake my clients are prepared to take legal action—”

Sloane snapped, seeing only black. He stumbled forward on his bad leg and grabbed Harper by the lapels, lifting him from his seat. “Where is Jake?” Someone bear-hugged him from behind.

“David, don’t.”

Sloane swung an elbow, striking Frank Carter in the ribs and causing him to fall backward, toppling one of the conference room chairs on his way to the floor. Bill and Terri Larsen had retreated from the table to a corner near the windows, Bill using his body to shield his cowering wife.

Sloane pointed a finger at them, breathing heavily, feeling spent. “I would have been willing to work with you. Even after the way you’ve treated me, I would have done it, for Tina and for Jake. Not now. Not ever.”

the art institute georgetown, washington, d.c.

ANNE LEROY LOOKED up from her easel, initially thinking the hissing came from the old radiator at the front of the room before realizing the insanity of a radiator being on this time of year.

“Psssst.”

Peggy Seeley stood in the hall outside the classroom door. When LeRoy made eye contact, Seeley gave her a stern expression and motioned her to the door, as if she held an urgent secret.

LeRoy sneaked a glance at the instructor standing at the front of the room, hoping she hadn’t heard or seen Seeley, but the woman’s frown indicated otherwise. She was clearly perturbed by the intrusion. The instructor emphasized the need to maintain a serene atmosphere to foster artistic creativity, playing soft classical music “to entice the inner artist.” LeRoy wasn’t convinced the music was to inspire the students as much as it was to drown out the drone of the fans used to disperse the nauseating paint odor.

Stuck between a disapproving frown and a stern expression, LeRoy reluctantly rested her paintbrush on her easel and wiped her hands on a rag. Though she stepped softly to the door, some of the students exhaled and rolled their eyes, as if she had blown a bugle. LeRoy had taken the class thinking it might be fun while she sought employment, but that was quickly dispelled by the instructor’s serious demeanor and the other students’ self-indulgent attitudes. From what LeRoy had been able to discern over the past weeks, none were going to be the next Picasso or Rembrandt, but God forbid she be the one to tell them.

She stepped into the hallway and spoke in a hushed voice. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you,” Seeley said, also whispering.

“I gathered that. Can it wait? Why didn’t you call?”

“Your cell is off.”

“Because I’m in class,” she said.

“Well, I’m sorry but it’s important. Payne came to my cubicle today.”

“So?” LeRoy hadn’t given Payne much thought since the day she left. “What did he want?”

“Oh nothing, he just asked how I was doing and wanted to make sure I was happy.”

“You came here to tell me that?”

“No. What do you think he wanted? He knows you downloaded the report on magnets.”

“What?” LeRoy’s raised voice drew the attention of several students closest to the door. She pulled Seeley farther down the hall. “How?”

“Probably when he had someone from IT check your computer,” Seeley said.

LeRoy paced the drab white hallway, battered lockers on one side for students. “Have you ever heard of them doing that before?”

“No. But I also don’t care. I don’t want to get fired. I can’t afford to get fired.”

“Why would
you
get fired?”

She raised her voice again. “Because he obviously must think I’m a part of this, otherwise he wouldn’t have told me to tell you that he wants the report back.”

“Okay, okay, take it easy.” LeRoy sighed, trying to think. “What if I just get rid of it? What if I just tell him I threw it out?”

“No,” Seeley said, emphatic.

The art teacher stuck her head out the door. “Are we disturbing you?” she asked.

“I’m sorry,” LeRoy said. “It’s a family matter.” She pulled
Seeley still farther down the hall as the teacher shut the door to the room.

“That’s exactly what you can’t do,” Seeley continued. “Payne said you had to return it.”

“Why? I’ll just tell him I never had it. How can he prove it?”

Seeley looked about to scream. “Hello! Have you been listening to anything I’ve said? The IT guys know you downloaded the file, that means Payne knows you have it. You can’t just throw it out. You have to give it back.”

“So how would he know that I didn’t just copy it again?”

“Anne, are you looking to get in trouble?”

LeRoy groaned, frustrated. “Fine, I’ll give the damn thing back. I hadn’t even given it any thought since I left. But if you ask me, there’s something else going on here, and he’s pissing me off.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.” She thought further. “But why is he so interested in a report that he told me not to finish? He pulled the funding; it isn’t going anywhere. So why is he making such a big deal about it?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Seeley said. “All I know is I don’t like being in the middle of it.”

“Well, I’m sorry I ever gave you the memory stick, okay?”

“So, you’re going to give it back, right?”

LeRoy scratched the top of her head, thinking.

“Anne?”

CHAPTER
SIX

SEA-TAC AIRPORT

BURIEN, WASHINGTON

Already barely hanging on, Sloane knew the thread holding him upright would snap if he lost Jake. He had initially refused to get on a plane back to Seattle, wanting to at least try to find Jake, which provoked a confrontation with Jenkins outside the building.

“We have no idea where he is, and even if we did, it won’t do Jake any good to be part of a confrontation between you and his grandparents or his father.”

“I’m his father.”

“Then act like it. Do what’s in the best interests of your son. You’ll have your day in court. Until then, the last time I checked, taking a child by force across state lines would be a federal offense.”